When it blew the lid open on the NSA domestic spying scandal in conjunction with the Guardian, the Washington Post released the first batch of slides revealing the preliminary details of which Internet firms cooperate in secret with the NSA, unleashing a firestorm of lies and denials by these same private companies (not to mention the administration), whose collaboration with the US government was subsequently revealed to be of symbiotically and mutually beneficial (think massive government contracts and classified data kickbacks in exchange for confidential customer data).

Last night, WaPo released the latest batch of slides given to it by Edward Snowden who appears to have been very busy downloading as much internal NSA info as he could, during his three months at Booz. This time we learn all about the PRISM "tasking" process -or the detail of how the NSA goes about "incidentally" spying on America's citizens (because as much as it is a headline grabber, the NSA spying on the EU, the G-20, and other non-US entities, is after all its job).

The twin revelations that telecom carriers have been secretly giving the National Security Agency information about Americans' phone calls, and that the N.S.A. has been capturing e-mail and other private communications from Internet companies as part of a secret program called Prism, have not enraged most Americans. Lulled, perhaps, by the Obama administration's claims that these "modest encroachments on privacy" were approved by Congress and by federal judges, public opinion quickly migrated from shock to "meh."

It didn't help that Congressional watchdogs —with a few exceptions, like Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky —have accepted the White House's claims of legality. The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, have called the surveillance legal. So have liberal-leaning commentators like Hendrik Hertzberg and David Ignatius.

This view is wrong —and not only, or even mainly, because of the privacy issues raised by the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics. The two programs violate both the letter and the spirit of federal law. No statute explicitly authorizes mass surveillance. Through a series of legal contortions, the Obama administration has argued that Congress, since 9/11, intended to implicitly authorize mass surveillance. But this strategy mostly consists of wordplay, fear-mongering and a highly selective reading of the law.

Americans deserve better from the White House —and from President Obama, who has seemingly forgotten the constitutional law he once taught. The administration has defended each of the two secret programs. Let's examine them in turn.

A priest, a banker and a spook… not the start of a joke or a John LeCarre spy novel, but merely the latest addition to a long list of financial scandals involving the Vatican Bank. Yet despite its quasi comedian if convoluted plotline, the latest attempt to defraud the Catholic church will likely pale in comparison to the most infamous incident involving the Institute of Religious Works (or IOR) as the Vatican Bank is also known.

[…]

Of course, the question now is just how honest the new pope Francis was when he vowed to simplify and reform any shady dealings in the Vatican: because not even he likely has any idea just how deep this particular rabbit hole goes… or what will be revealed when the latest criminal thriller involving a priest, a banker and a spook reaches its climax.

They are also hoping that the mission will help explain the mysterious heat surge that solar particles undergo when they reach the chromosphere.

According to NASA, the sun's mass rises up from its core, the sun's hottest zone, and gradually lowers in temperature as it nears the surface. Then its temperature spikes again as it travels through the photosphere to the corona and, eventually, out into space. Astronomers agree that some unidentified process is conveying heat energy to the corona and, in turn, to the chromosphere. IRIS may help them figure out what it is.

Whatever is taking place in the corona and chromosphere, it makes a big difference for life on Earth. These interactions drive the solar wind and are responsible for most of the sun's ultraviolet radiation. The solar wind impacts Earth's atmosphere, creates the aurora borealis phenomenon, and occasionally interferes with radio transmissions here on our planet, while the ultraviolet energy is what makes Earth's climate hospitable to life.

Friday, June 28, 2013

After hearing Dr. LaViolette discuss the coming Galactic Superwave on Coast to Coast AM radio talk show, a number of listeners had questions in regard to what they should do to prepare for the next superwave. Paul LaViolette (P L) attempts to address some of those questions in this Q&A session:

Information about the galactic superwave phenomenon may be learned by accessing the sphinx stargate cyber portals below. Some portals will take you also to other researchers who advocate similar points of view.

Our America is changing and it isn't looking pretty. Constitutional rights are disappearing, school education is lagging, and the Almighty dollar is all but a joke. Illegal immigration, lawsuit-happy money grabbers, GMO mega corporations, half the country on some form of welfare...where does it end? For our family, it ends now.

Thanks to Obama care, one of the two hospitals in my company's organization closed their doors permanently last month (May, 2013). Now, our smaller rural hospital has been gobbled up in a corporate buyout. I was informed that I no longer had a job...over the phone on a Friday afternoon...while visiting Oklahoma for my Grandmother's funeral.

Thus begins our journey to relocate to the country and take care of our family ourselves. No more traffic, smog, insane crime rates, grocery store dependency, bottom of the barrel public schools...and the list goes on and on. As the Robertsons (from Duck Dynasty) would say: "WE GONE!" As we debated how we could attain our ultimate goal of becoming self-sufficient on our own homestead, there appeared to be four clearly distinct barriers we had to overcome.

First, what would be our final homestead location?

Second, how would we sustain ourselves when we arrived at our new home?

Third, how would we physically get our family and our assets to the homestead location?

"The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." -- Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover

***

Remember the Occupy Movement? The peaceful crowds that camped out in the center of a number of cities in the fall of 2011, calling for some recognition by local, state and federal authorities that our democratic system was out of whack, controlled by corporate interests, and in need of immediate repair?

That movement swept the US beginning in mid-September 2011. When, in early October, the movement came to Houston, Texas, law enforcement officials and the city's banking and oil industry executives freaked out perhaps even more so than they did in some other cities.

The push-back took the form of violent assaults by police on Occupy activists, federal and local surveillance of people seen as organizers, infiltration by police provocateurs—and, as crazy as it sounds, some kind of plot to assassinate the "leaders" of this non-violent and leaderless movement.

But don't take our word for it. Here's what the document obtained from the Houston FBI, said:

Thursday, June 27, 2013

From the moment Bernanke spoke, Gold and Silver began to accelerate to the downside. Gold legged lower into the NYMEX pit close and faded further in search of the $1200 round number (trading at $1199.90). Down around 12% from the FOMC (gold is now -38% from its highs in 2011).

Not content with simply being the man-made object to travel farthest from Earth, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft recently entered a bizarre new region at the solar system's edge that has physicists baffled. Their theories don't predict anything like it.

[…]

For his part, Krimigis didn't even want to speculate on what Voyager might encounter next because theorists' models have so far not worked extremely well. "I'm convinced that nature is far more imaginative than we are," he said.

With heightened concern over secret intelligence operations at the National Security Agency, the localized effort to track drivers highlights the extent to which the government has committed to collecting large amounts of data on people who have done nothing wrong.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Along with exposing widespread international surveillance, Edward Snowden has revealed how exactly the US is financing its military ambitions, according to Max Keiser.

Below is a transcript of Max Keiser being interviewed by an unnamed RT host.

RT: Surely not even you can make any kind of link between the Snowden saga and the US economy?

Max Keiser: The American economy runs on the confidence, confidence that the world accepts the US dollar as world reserve currency, confidence that the US bond market will remain the standard. And what we are seeing is a sell-off in a bond market and a sell-off in the stock market, because confidence in the US and its ability to maintain a global empire through interest rates and the Central Bank policy is crumbling before the world's very eyes.

What's interesting is that Edward Snowden worked for Booz Allen. Booz Allen allegedly along with a few other companies are the masterminds behind LIBOR market rigging, energy market rigging, FOREX market rigging.

And this is really the fuel that keeps the American military empire going, because the American economy itself cannot support its military ambitions so they've resorted to market manipulation and the kind of intelligence that Edward Snowden is able to aggregate is key to manipulating markets in ways that make Booz Allen, allegedly, the channel for billions and billions of dollars into America's military campaigns.

And this is really about money, markets and manipulations. It's not about security. It's not to do with anything that the White House says. Remember, the White House is a puppet of Wall Street, Booz Allen, the hedge funds and the financial interests of the corrupt bankers.

RT: Can you also give us an idea of how some of those big companies like Google, or Facebook could actually benefit from this surveillance program PRISM? Is there financial a financial gain from them?

MK: Absolutely, because all of the manipulation involves rigging the indexes. And the indexes are all data-sensitive. So, if you can manipulate the data, you can manipulate the indexes and you manipulate the markets. And if you have advanced knowledge of that inside information you can make billions of dollars of front-running, high-frequency trading, algorithmic trading. And, of course, all the banks on the Wall Street are in on this and all the banks in the UK.

It's very telling that the foreign minister of Ecuador said that, look "you are talking about us extraditing Edward Snowden, what about bringing back those bankers we asked you to bring back to Ecuador who we caught rigging and terrorizing our market?" What about the Icelandic bankers that have been asked by the government of Iceland to be extradited back to Iceland that are being held in the UK? What about these other instances where banking terrorists are being sheltered in the US and the UK? They're not responding to extradition agreements.

So this is all about financial legerdemain, unfortunately, Americans don't have enough money to fight their wars anymore so they have to resort to snooping, data-gathering, and market manipulation.

RT: What about the diplomatic fallout? We've seen tensions between China and Washington but that of course leads to economic tension. Could that impact trade between the two?

MK: I hope Russia, China, and Ecuador stand up to the financial terrorists in America and Britain. Stay the course. Don't give in and don't appease the financial terrorists on Wall Street.

RT: But how could a small country like Ecuador stand up to a giant like America, where there is indeed trade between the two?

MK: What Edward Snowden has proved is that if you live a principled life and stay true to your convictions then you can change the world.

RT: Are we going to see financial fallout between China and the US?

MK: Well China has got a fantastic card to play, one trillion US dollars that they can dump on the market anytime and jack interest rates up five or six points, which would throw the real estate market back into collapse. China is pulling the strings here and China has all the cards to play. America is the biggest debtor nation in the world.

Look at the bond market today, it's selling off spectacularly all over the world because confidence in the American hologram of finance is collapsing. They flipped the switch. They see that the emperor has no clothes. They see that there's no underlying economic activity to support the military and financial occupations emanating from the US. It's game over!

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." -- Samuel Adams

Leon Trotsky, who also participated in a brutal fascist surveillance state, put it best: "The real criminals hide under the cloak of the accusers."

Over the last two months, and particularly over the last two weeks, investors have been exiting their bond investments with unexpected ferocity, moves that continued through Monday.

A bond sell-off has been anticipated for years, given the long run of popularity that corporate and government bonds have enjoyed. But most strategists expected that investors would slowly transfer out of bonds, allowing interest rates to slowly drift up.

Instead, since the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, recently suggested that the strength of the economic recovery might allow the Fed to slow down its bond-buying program, waves of selling have convulsed the markets.

Possible beginning of, or actual execution of, a false flag. Watch for large mobilizations by rail and convoy. Watch for mixing of law enforcement with military personnel. Foreign APCs arrived last week. Foreign troops have permanent station within the U.S. Fleet-sized C-17 mobilization already done. My guess is that the 26th date is the beginning of continued "frog boiling" but be cautious from the 26h for 72 hours. Unusual heavy helicopter activity nation-wide. LA reports military vehicles being stored near parks.

Bottom line, it matters where you hold your savings. Balance sheet fundamentals are critical. And moving your hard-earned savings to a well-capitalized, highly liquid bank is one of those things that makes sense, no matter what. If nothing happens, you won't be worse off for it. Yet if the confidence game collapses, you'll be one of the few left standing with your savings intact.

NOAA reports that continental slumping of the shelf east of New Jersey, may have been the cause of this tsunami. NOAA also confirm that their tide gages did pick this event up at the time and that other ocean observation centers also picked up similar results.

Dr. Simon Atkins has responded to this event and confirms it's a hit on his forecast.

NOT ONE MEDIA OUTLET outside of local circles has dared to mention it, perhaps because government fears that if the public learns that other people are getting fighting mad (literally), they might join in, and become an actual revolution. It was only reported locally live on KXL Radio and echoed by the Oregonian, where the ONLY Web mention exists, hard to find because the headline wording carefully avoids the most likely keywords for a search —took me rather a while to find it. Here's the scoop —PASS IT ON!

40 Tons of GMO Sugar Beets were set ablaze in Eastern Oregon, yesterday. FORTY TONS —the entire acreage of two full fields of crops IN THE GROUND were set ablaze over a THREE NIGHT PERIOD OF TIME. That means ARSON.

Evidence is that 6,500 plants were destroyed BY HAND, ONE PLANT AT A TIME. That, in turn, implies A LOT OF PEOPLE were involved.

If Obama thought dealing with Putin was next to impossible when Snowden was merely hiding in the no man's land of the Sheremetyevo transit zone (see "U.S. steps up pressure on Russia as Snowden stays free") he is about to really lose his grip now that the former KGB spy appears set to "debrief" the very much current NSA whistleblower, and in the process learn as much as possible about US secret spy operations on whose receiving end, for countless years, has been none other than Putin's Russia. Pushkin poetic justice.

[Yet another case where ZH reader comments are as good (or better!) than the story. In this case, they're a must-read. - c]

At a time when overindebted governments are making increasingly desperate grabs for their citizens' money, keeping all your assets invested in one country –and denominated in one currency –is a very bad idea. So now is the time to ask yourself: Does Your Bank Account Have Diplomatic Immunity?

Read on for the 7 best ways to internationally diversify... and how to start putting them into action today.

Spaniards wary of trusting their life savings to their country's shaky banking system can now buy a mattress that has an armored safe equipped with a keypad combination lock hidden in one end.

The new product, Caja de ahorros Micolchon —Spanish for "My Mattress Safe" —went on sale three weeks ago, several months after the European Union approved loans of up to $130 billion to bail out troubled Spanish banks.

"It turns out our grandparents had the right idea —hiding their money under the mattress!" the inventor laughed.

Even though nowadays many countries are struggling to protect peace, there are several official "war" conflict zones on Earth. In many cases, major countries can interfere with their own troops. However, in order to prevent the risk of losing soldiers from a national army, or in case a country doesn't have enough of a military force, a government can hire mercenaries.

It is too early to call Venezuela a truly hyperinflationary economy, but it looks to be on the brink. We can see early signs of all of the feedback pathways that make hyperinflation potentially so explosive. It is true that something could yet defuse the process. For example, a sharp increase in global oil prices could provide an unexpected increase in revenue for the budget. Alternatively, although it seems unlikely, the government of Nicolas Maduro could turn away from the populist policies of Hugo Chavez and impose stringent austerity measures. Doing so would be hard on the real economy, but it could bring inflation down.

It is more likely, however, that the Venezuelan government will continue its dysfunctional blend of free spending, socialist mismanagement, and administrative restrictions on foreign exchange and retail prices. If so, the near future could see the first real outbreak of hyperinflation in Latin America since the 1980s. As blogger Billy Mitchell once wrote in reference to hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, "Bad Governments will wreck any economy if they want to."

Along with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, leading conservative radio host Mark Levin reaches tens of millions of listeners weekly, and what he talked about recently on his nationally syndicated show has sent shivers down the spines of many of them.

A few years ago this was fringe theory, restricted only to the sphere of alternative (conspiracy) news.

Warnings of a massive economic collapse, government stockpiling of weaponry, and the idea that Americans could be broadly classified as terrorists and then detained indefinitely or killed often fell upon deaf ears.

Today, as more information 'leaks' into the mainstream, it is no longer just conspiracy theory.

We now have some of the most influential journalists and commentators in the country alerting Americans to the possibility that everything the government has been preparing for the last several years may soon be realized.

Monday, June 24, 2013

GEAB, to who you really should consider subscribing, has an earlier timeframe than I do on the "Great Reset," yet we agree totally on the "Great Leveling."

Historians will certainly consider the 2008 crisis as a warning shot ahead of that of 2013. All the world's regions won't be affected in the same way but all will suffer. According to LEAP/E2020 the stages of this second crisis can be summarised as follows:

–end 2013, financial impact: collapse of financial markets especially in the US and Japan. Banks can no longer be saved by States and bail-ins are put in place;

–end 2013-2014, spreading to the real economy: the financial impasse causes/reveals a major world recession and the reduction of international trade;

–2014, social impact: the economic deterioration causes unemployment to explode, in the United States the dollar's decline lowers the standard of living, riots mushroom everywhere;

–2014, political crisis: the governments of the most affected countries are under fire for their handling of the crisis, forced resignations and early elections are expected, if not coups;

–2014-2015, international management of the crisis: together Euroland and the BRICS impose a new international monetary system and lay down the bases of a new global governance;

The phrase "DuckDuckGo it" doesn't roll off the tongue quite as smoothly as "Google it," but you could be hearing it a lot more soon.

Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo has attracted hordes of news users in the wake of revelations that Google and other prominent tech firms have been handing over user data to U.S. intelligence agencies.

The Shanghai Composite, which had largely been able to weather the recent dramatic shocks to both liquidity and the economy, finally threw in the towel and crashed.

Moments ago the Shanghai Composite fell 5.5%, the biggest intraday slide since August 2009, and dropping below 2,000 for first time since December.

Needless to say the world's second largest economy imploding, and its stock market crashing were enough to send all of Asia lower, with the Nikkei225 unable to sustain gains on a weaker Yen, and swining from up over 1% to down 1.3%.

As for that China derivative, Australia and specifically its currency the AUD, it just hit a fresh 52 week low against the USD at 0.9155.

Of course, if the BIS's warning about what is coming to the "developed markets" is accurate, this is nothing but a pleasant rehearsal of what one can expect in the US and in other G-7 places.

The revelation that Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings was working on a story about the CIA before his death and had contacted a Wikileaks lawyer about being under investigation by the FBI hours before his car exploded into flames has bolstered increasingly valid claims that the 33-year-old was assassinated.

(1-2) Two Congressmen, Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr, House Majority Leader, along with Alaska Congressman NickBegich, killed in the same plane crash, 16 October 1972; Boggs was involved in JFK assassination investigation.

(3) Congressman Larry McDonald of Georgia was killed on 1 September 1983, booked onto the Korean airliner that was shot down over the ocean; McDonald had filed bills asking the US Congress to investigate the globalist bodies, the Trilateral Commission and the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations.)

(4) Former US Senator from Texas John Tower, killed in plane crash 5 April 1991, after criticising Reagan-Bush scandals.

(5) William Colby, former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, found dead 27 April 1996, laughable story he drowned after paddling his canoe by his Maryland weekend house; Colby had made revelations critical of US policies.

(6) Sonny Bono, singer from Sonny & Cher, Congressman on the key House Judiciary Committee, killed 6 January 1998, after gaining position to investigate corruption at America's highest levels, Bono handled files on judicial corruption and the CIA drug trade ... story that excellent skier Sonny went head-on into a tree ... even ex-FBI people say it was murder.

(7) US Missouri Governor Melvin Eugene 'Mel' Carnahan, killed in plane crash 16 October 2000, opponent of vicious US Attorney General John Ashcroft, Carnahan won an election even after being dead.

(8) US Senator Paul Wellstone from Minnesota, killed in plane crash 25 October 2002, after leading opposition to the US Iraq War.

(9) Former US Congressman Wayne Owens from Utah, found dead in Tel Aviv, Israel, 18 December 2002, while investigating the triangle of US-Israeli-Palestinian Authority corruption.

(10) US Federal Judge John Roll shot dead in Tucson, Arizona, 8 January 2011, shortly after ruling against Obama and the US gov't ...drugged up 'lone gunman' promptly supplied, 'confessing' and otherwise barely seen.

So having been given the blessing of HK (and thus China) to defy the US, Snowden is now en route to Moscow (see flight tracker below), from where he is said he may continue further to Iceland, although according to a conflicting report from Russia's Interfax his ultimate destination is Havana, Cuba, while some note that he may be headed to Caracas Venezuela instead. Of course, he may just remain in Moscow: it's not as if Putin will comply with any American extradition order.

From Wikileaks: "Mr Snowden requested that WikiLeaks use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety. Once Mr Snowden arrives at his final destination his request will be formally processed."

Former Spanish Judge Mr Baltasar Garzon, legal director of Wikileaks and lawyer for Julian Assange has made the following statement: "The WikiLeaks legal team and I are interested in preserving Mr Snowden's rights and protecting him as a person. What is being done to Mr Snowden and to Mr Julian Assange -for making or facilitating disclosures in the public interest -is an assault against the people."

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Global financial markets are now in a very perilous state, and there is a much higher than normal chance of a crash.

Bernanke's recent statement revealed just how large a role speculation had played in the prices of nearly everything, and now there is a mad dash for cash taking place all over the world.

After years of cramming liquidity into the markets, creating massive imbalances such as stock markets hitting new highs even as economic fundamentals deteriorated (Germany) or were lackluster (U.S.), junk bonds hitting all-time-record highs, and sovereign bond yields steadily falling even as the macro economics of various countries worsened markedly (Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal), all of this was steadily building up pressures that were going to be relieved someday.

Just over a month ago, Japan lit the fuse by destabilizing its domestic market, which sent ripples throughout the world.

[ZH: Must-watch clarifying few minutes with Chris -grab a glass of Absynth, forward to 1:40 in the following clip and listen]

According to 'The Hawk' from Steve Quayle's Survive2Thrive radio network and Hawks FEMA/DHS sources, FEMA called an emergency meeting this week in which it has notified the heads of all of its agencies to be '90% battle strength' in the next 5 weeks, 70% strength within 7 days and notified him that all agency ogpersonel are now being called in and activated.

Additionally, Hawk's sources warn to expect some type of a 'domestic event' within 10 to 14 days with lots of 'chatter' surrounding July 3rd.

The 'meat' of this report begins at the 4 minute, 45 second mark in this video.

Such units have completely altered the very concept of special forces and their operating methods.

[…]

According to Gerasimov, the special operations forces will have the same tasks that the Spetsnaz GRU used to have: tactical reconnaissance and target marking for strike forces, sabotage operations in the deep rear, the elimination of enemy commanders and the capture of strategic infrastructure facilities.

Snowden could also remain in Hong Kong if the Chinese government decides that it is not in the defense or foreign policy interests of the government in Beijing to have him sent back to the United States for trial.

Snowden could also apply for asylum in Hong Kong or attempt to reach another jurisdiction and seek asylum there before the authorities in Hong Kong act.

The anti-secrecy group Wikileaks has held some discussions with officials in Iceland about providing asylum to Snowden.

A businessman in Iceland has offered to fly Snowden on a chartered jet to his country if he is granted asylum there.

I am a wild food author who lived it for years while homesteading in the Adirondacks of upstate New York, and I lived on wild food for many years after that during my teaching days. I still eat wild food today in retirement.

YES. Wild food is abundant, nutritious, healthy, easy-to-use and, best of all, free! This is important to know, and it's an important cognition to have early on the way to becoming proficient with it. Having your eyes opened to the fact that it is everywhere must, of course, come before starting the journey that ends with being starvation-proofed.

[…]

Wild food represents a lifestyle change —a change of mindset —and it takes some getting used to. It is, first of all, more nutrition than your body is used to dealing with, so over-doing it is easy. It is often a different consistency and a different taste. You will find that you have to adjust the quantity of your intake. There have been lots of instances where the men that I fed wild food to would overdo it and find themselves buzzing with energy from foods like a cattail pollen pancake or too much yarrow tea. This is why the idea of "a pinch to nutrition" is a good one. You will want to start slow and follow my Rules of Foraging as you go, reprinted below for your convenience.

You can dive in and go gung-ho, surely, but this is a journey and can't be traveled all at once, especially on a deadline of personal starvation. You need to start now, before you need it. The essential unit of learning this skill is learning one plant thoroughly and completely. THIS represents one step, and that step is repeated for each and every plant until you finally have a full collection of them. You quite probably do not have even one plant learned completely all the way from ID to storage. If so, you have not really started your journey into wild food proficiency!

As the Guardian's Greenwald notes, "The broad scope of the court orders, and the nature of the procedures set out in the documents, appear to clash with assurances from President Obama and senior intelligence officials that the NSA could not access Americans' call or email information without warrants."

And more importantly, "The documents also show that discretion as to who is actually targeted under the NSA's foreign surveillance powers lies directly with its own analysts, without recourse to courts or superiors –though a percentage of targeting decisions are reviewed by internal audit teams on a regular basis."

[…]

If it later appears that a target is in fact located in the US, analysts are permitted to look at the content of messages, or listen to phone calls, to establish if this is indeed the case.

[…]

And that is how, contrary to the administration's lies, virtually anyone can be an NSA target, and absolutely every single American can be spied on without limitation.

Finally, the Eric Holder signed documents can be found here and here for readers' perusal.

In brief (pun intended): a complete, unpredictable clusterfuck accompanied by wholesale liquidations of "liquid assets", deleveraging and potentially a waterfall effect that finally bursts China's bubble, all due to a simple black swan. Although, in reality, nobody knows. Just like nobody knew what would happen when the government decided to let Lehman fail.

I guess I should start off with a warning here: it's not at all probable that you really can. However, people have been pinging me, and I don't like any of the suggestions that I've seen so far. This is a first cut.

The second warning here is that this is not useful for voice or email protection (mostly), and won't help with GPS geolocation tracking. It's purely a thought experiment on how to transmit decently large quantities of information without NSA being likely to understand the content, or even that information is likely to be transmitted. That last point is the key.

By kx59 - The only way to truly go dark on the net is to disconnect. That includes your smart phone, your PS3 and your xbox 360. These days, that might include your smart washer and dryer and the high tech refrigerator with the LED screen on the door. Oh, I forgot your security system. Particularly the glass break sensors. They are, after all, highly sensitive microphones. But, if you don't have anything to hide, you've nothing to worry about. Right? It's been mentioned before. What you know about Prism, so far, is just the tip of the ice berg. I suggest getting to know your neighbors.

An interesting video on the use of 12 gauge birdshot for self defense. This video makes a pretty compelling argument that birdshot is adequate for close quarters type self defense. A several inch deep hole the size of a fist is nothing to sneer at. If you are only worried about close distances and penetration is a real concern this might be something to think about.

The currency, the Syrian pound, fell about 30 percent in value against the dollar over the weekend, partly on news that the United States intended to arm some elements of the rebellion seeking to topple Mr. Assad.

The Central Bank governor, Adib Mayalah, announced Tuesday that to help stabilize the pound, Syria would tap into a $1 billion credit line provided by Iran. That appeared to be helping on Wednesday. But the effects of that aid are considered temporary at best, as Iran is facing its own severe financial constraints.

Where would you go if you were Edward Snowden (or Jason Bourne) and were being hunted by the most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet?

[…]

Generally speaking, in order for extradition to be successful, the suspected criminal act must not be political in nature, it must be recognized as a crime in both jurisdictions, and the suspect must not be in danger of receiving the death penalty or torture if transferred.

Absent a formal extradition treaty, transferring individuals becomes much more difficult but certainly not impossible.

[…]

Taking these steps are not just wise for the Edward Snowdens and Jason Bournes of the world, internationalizing is a completely legal and prudent strategy for anyone who does not want to be under the total control of the whims of one particular government –especially one that is desperate, bankrupt, and totally out of control.

Unless the rice you buy is certified organic, or comes specifically from a farm that tests its rice crops for genetically modified (GM) traits, you could be eating rice tainted with actual human genes.

The only known GMO with inbred human traits in cultivation today, a GM rice product made by biotechnology company Ventria Bioscience is currently being grown on 3,200 acres in Junction City, Kansas —and possibly elsewhere —and most people have no idea about it.

This will decisively change the character of China, where the Communist Party insisted for decades that most peasants, even those working in cities, remain tied to their tiny plots of land to ensure political and economic stability. Now, the party has shifted priorities, mainly to find a new source of growth for a slowing economy that depends increasingly on a consuming class of city dwellers.

While the economic fortunes of many have improved in the mass move to cities, unemployment and other social woes have also followed the enormous dislocation. Some young people feel lucky to have jobs that pay survival wages of about $150 a month; others wile away their days in pool halls and video-game arcades.

“For old people like us, there’s nothing to do anymore,” said He Shifang, 45, a farmer from the city of Ankang in Shaanxi Province who was relocated from her family’s farm in the mountains. “Up in the mountains we worked all the time. We had pigs and chickens. Here we just sit around and people play mah-jongg.”

It started off a simple protest in Sao Paulo as a demonstration by students against an increase in bus fares from R$3 to R$3.20, and then quickly morphed into general demonstration of discontent with the nation's political classes on both sides of the spectrum involving over 200,000 across the country, with those marching on Monday holding placards decrying everything from the enormous sums spent on the World Cup to the treatment by police of protesters last week.

It got to the point where protesters invaded and occupied, peacefully, the roof of the national Congress complex in Brasilia.

Then things turned less peaceful when a breakaway group from the main rally in Rio de Janeiro attacked the state legislative assembly building and attempted to set it on fire.

What do 1929, 2000 and 2007 all have in common? Those were all years in which we saw a dramatic spike in margin debt. In all three instances, investors became highly leveraged in order to "take advantage" of a soaring stock market. But of course we all know what happened each time. The spike in margin debt was rapidly followed by a horrifying stock market crash. Well guess what? It is happening again.

The realm of secrecy and deception among shadowy yet powerful forces may sound like the province of investigative reporters, thriller novelists and Hollywood moviemakers —and it is —but it is also a matter for philosophers. More accurately, understanding deception and and how it can be exposed has been a principle project of philosophy for the last 2500 years. And it is a place where the work of journalists, philosophers and other truth-seekers can meet.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Jim: Is it true, what the rumors have been saying about the [magnetic] north pole shifting 161 miles in just the past six months? Can that be true? Is it possible that there will be a pole reversal in the next few years? Should I be worried? -- Elaine T.

"In this high-tech world that's all about speed, greed and instant gratification, tai chi is the antidote to bring us back to balanced health," according to Arthur Rosenfeld, a tai chi master and the author of a new book called "Tai Chi —The Perfect Exercise: Finding Health, Happiness, Balance, and Strength."

"It doesn't mean you can win the marathon or clean and jerk 750 pounds or win a cycle sprint," said the South Florida resident, 56. "It's not about getting there sooner." Tai chi is more about how the body works than how it looks, and is about aging gracefully and "with less drama."

[…]

T'ai chi ch'uan, as it is formally known, derives from a form of Chinese martial arts. Explaining the slow, circular movement of the practice, Rosenfeld said tai chi is a philosophical term that means the harmonious interplay of opposing forces.

When nature encounters a strong force, the way it answers that force to maintain harmony in the world is with a spiral, he said.

"Astronomers see galaxies moving in spirals, water goes down the drain in a spiral, tornados form as a spiral. We spiral in tai chi because the most effective way to move fluid through solid is a spiral."

Sunday, June 16, 2013

A military decision has been taken in Iran –even before last week's presidential election –to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad's forces against the largely Sunni rebellion that has cost almost 100,000 lives in just over two years.

Iran is now fully committed to preserving Assad's regime, according to pro-Iranian sources which have been deeply involved in the Islamic Republic's security, even to the extent of proposing to open up a new 'Syrian' front on the Golan Heights against Israel.

McDonald's happy image and its golden arches aren't the gateway to bliss in Bolivia. This South American country isn't falling for the barrage of advertising and fast food cooking methods that so easily engulf countries like the United States. Bolivians simply don't trust food prepared in such little time. The quick and easy, mass production method of fast food actually turns Bolivians off altogether. Sixty percent of Bolivians are an indigenous population who generally don't find it worth their health or money to step foot in a McDonald's. Despite its economically friendly fast food prices, McDonald's couldn't coax enough of the indigenous population of Bolivia to eat their BigMacs, McNuggets or McRibs.

[…]

The McRib: 70 ingredients all restructured into one

Did you know that the McRib is processed with 70 different ingredients which include azodicarbonamide, a flour-bleaching agent often used in producing foamed plastics? McRib's are basically "restructured meat technology" containing a mixture of tripe, heart, and scalded stomach. Proteins are extracted from this muscle mixture and they bind the pork trimmings together so they can be molded in a factory. The McRib is really just a molded blob of restructured meat, advertised and sold like fresh ribs. There's nothing real about it, the preparation or the substance. In fact, McRibs really came about because of a chicken shortage. The restructured meat technology approach kept the McRib on the menu, despite the shortage, and the profits continued rolling in.

On June 10, Courtney Brown from the Farsight Institute released an initial summary report on the Farsight's Climate Change remote viewing project. This remote vieing project is of course the project that coincided with the webbots Global Coastal Event beginning.

I wanted to go over a few things that he discussed as I think they are important for us to think about and ponder on. If you missed the 30 minute update by Courtney Brown, you can view it below as I will be discussing elements of it.

Yes, some guns were confiscated in New Orleans, LA (NOLA) following hurricane Katrina, but it was nowhere near as widespread as some would have you believe. They were isolated incidents and the majority of those were done by out of town LEO [law enforcement officer] and MIL.

What you are about to read are my personal experiences and recollection of events as I saw them. While not all-inclusive, I think they lend a fair account of what really happened on the ground.

[By Brannon LeBouef, an 11-year veteran of the US Marine Corps, a 15 plus year veteran of law enforcement, a former private military security contractor, and professional firearms trainer.]

Can the City That Never Sleeps become the City That Never Dies? A Russian multimillionaire thinks so.

Dmitry Itskov gathered some of humanity's best brains —and a few robots —in New York City on Saturday to discuss how humans can get their minds to outlive their bodies.

Itskov, who looks younger than his 32 years, has an aggressive timetable in which he'd like to see milestones toward that goal met:

—By 2020, robots we can control remotely with our brains.

—By 2025, a scenario familiar to watchers of sci-fi cartoon show "Futurama:" the capability to transplant the brain into a life-support system, which could be a robot body. Essentially, a robot prosthesis that can replace an ailing, perhaps dying body.

—By 2035, the ability to move the mind into a computer, eliminating the need for the robot bodies to carry around wet, messy brains.

The testimony of the neuroscience experts invited to Itskov's Global Future 2045 conference at Lincoln Center in the New York City's Manhattan borough indicate that Itskov's timetable is ambitious to the point of being unrealistic.

But the gathering was a rare public airing of questions that will face us as technology progresses. Is immortality desirable, and if so, what's the best way to get there? Do we leave behind something essentially human if we leave our bodies behind? If you send your robot copy to work, do you get paid?

The 'life' and times of Andrew, an android who is purchased as a household robot programmed to perform menial tasks. Within a few days the Martin family realizes that they don't have an ordinary droid as Andrew begins to experience emotions and creative thought. In a story that spans two centuries, Andrew learns the intricacies of humanity while trying to stop those who created him from destroying him.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Are we talking about Nostradamus or even anything remotely as cheesy as him? We all know that was a load of baloney. Just hot air and wind! Right? The Mayans might have got it right after all. Remember, the end of the world for them didn't necessarily mean the end of the world it just meant the end of a cycle. A new cycle might begin, just different, opening up a whole new world. So maybe that cycle did begin as the door closed on 2012. January came and went and we are still here.

But, there are people who are in-the-know and who are able to predict (or think they can) what's going to happen even years ahead of when it actually does. Yet, we only look back and then it's too late for the 'if-only' statements and weeping over the milk that got spilt. There's no point looking back and regretting anything. Might as well listen to the people that have correlated the ups and downs in the financial markets. For once! What else have you got to lose?

If we are to believe what they said, then this is the year. 2013! It's going to happen according to them. The stock-market is ready to crash yet again this year and this time it's going to be a big one. Let's take a look at what was said, when, why and by whom.

In your kitchen, you have great things that you might be tossing into the garbage can, things that could be adding nutrition to your soil, things like coffee grounds, used tea, egg shells, potato and banana peels, food scraps, there are some who say to compost meat, others say not to, it does take longer to compost and it could attract vermin… the list can go on and on.

[…]

Really want to get hard core here? You can go with the Humanure method of composting human waste, as long as it's properly composted, that is perfectly safe to apply to your garden. At the very least, urine is high in nitrogen, is perfectly sanitary and your plants will love it, you don't need to compost urine but you will need to dilute it, a 10% solution in water will make for some happy plants. Just don't tell your mother in law what you used to fertilize the green beans you are eating for lunch, not unless she is really into organic gardening big time… :)

A boycott of Facebook, Microsoft, Google et al is easy to talk about, but almost impossible to achieve.

One shouldn't entrust one's personal communications to any of them. That means:

no Microsoft cloud services,

no Google or Bing searches,

no Google Docs,

no Gmail, Yahoo mail or Hotmail;

no Skype calls;

no YouTube or Vimeo videos;

no Flickr or Picasa;

no Facebook or Twitter.

And, of course, no iPhone or iPad use.

Why? Because all these services and/or devices rely on cloud services hosted in the US, which –we must assume –are routinely hoovered by the NSA for indefinite storage in the colossal server farm the agency has been constructing in Utah.

A lost medieval city that thrived on a mist-shrouded Cambodian mountain 1,200 years ago has been discovered by archaeologists using revolutionary airborne laser technology.

The city, Mahendraparvata, included temples hidden by jungle for centuries, many of which have not been looted.

[…]

"We see from the imagery that the landscape was completely devoid of vegetation," Evans, a co-expedition leader, said.

"One theory we are looking at is that the severe environmental impact of deforestation and the dependence on water management led to the demise of the civilisation ... perhaps it became too successful to the point of becoming unmanageable."

The study, carried out between March and May 2013, showed that proportions of positive samples varies between countries, with Malta (90 per cent) , Germany (70 per cent), UK (70 per cent) and Poland being "the most positive samples" and Macedonia and Switzerland –"the lowest".

[…]

Glyphosate is essentially used on plants including grasses, sedges, broad-leaved weeds and woody plants as well as great variety of genetically modified crops. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, which is sprayed in large amounts on genetically engineered, so-called "Roundup Ready," crops.

I hate to do this but I feel obligated to share, as the story unfolds, my creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be, and that the motivations involved in the story may be more complex than they appear to be.

This is in no way to detract from the great courage of Glenn Greenwald in reporting the story, and the gutsiness of the Guardian in showcasing this kind of reporting, which is a service to America that US media is not performing at all.

It is just to raise some cautions as the story unfolds, and to raise some questions about how it is unfolding, based on my experience with high-level political messaging.

Some of Snowden's emphases seem to serve an intelligence/police state objective, rather than to challenge them.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Does Glenn Beck really have a secret document that will soon change history or is this just more fluff from Beck?

This video just released on YouTube by WeAreTheSavageNation is the most recent word we have gotten straight from Glenn on what could turn out to be a truly historic night as Glenn fills us in on the 'behind the scenes' events that have happened leading up to this 'event'.

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria's opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.

The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.

[…]

David H. Petraeus, the C.I.A. director until November, had been instrumental in helping to get this aviation network moving and had prodded various countries to work together on it.

[…]

“Arming or not arming, lethal or nonlethal —it all depends on what America says,” said Mohammed Abu Ahmed, who leads a band of anti-Assad fighters in Idlib Province.

The Nisqually Plate, beneath south Puget Sound, slipped about SEVEN INCHES in 2011, triggering a quake that brought down building fronts in Pioneer Square, damaged the Capitol dome in Olympia, and set us on a path of replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The pricetag: $2 billion.

The Juan de Fuca Plate, off the Coast, may slide as much as 14 to 15 FEET.

[…]

The Big One is very likely to be catastrophic.

For instance, there is one road off Washington's Long Beach Peninsula,... residents would have at most one hour's warning to evacuate.